


Act Three

by asforetold



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 19:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10646679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asforetold/pseuds/asforetold
Summary: Returning home to Ravnica after a six-year absence, the once-legendary playwright Andreov finds his old troupe in shambles and his best players scattered to the winds. But the show must go on, and the third act of his magnum opus, complete at last, demands an audience.





	Act Three

Slate Street is not the sort of neighbourhood where midnight knocks at the door go unanswered. Ignore one and, in a couple of minutes, you may no longer have a door.

The little sliding panel at eye level slid across, and a single heavy-lidded eye peered out, going from groggy to wide awake in the space of about three seconds. The hair was longer and greyer, the beard somehow even scruffier, but it was definitely still him.

“Andreov!” The door swung open and Narvi practically dragged him inside and into the atrium, breath shallow with shock. “We thought you were dead, we thought they’d killed you, we thought…”

“It makes sense,” he admitted, helping himself to the best chair. “I’ve been gone a while.”

“A while?” The stocky, cyclopean elf rounded on him, shock finally giving way to anger. “It’s been six years! Even Yula’s given up on you now!”

“But you hadn’t.”

She deflated. For all her frustration, she knew he was right. “I knew you’d made it out. They never found the body.”

Andreov grinned. “Damn right. I just had to go underground for a while.” He glanced around the room. “Do you have anything to drink? I’m parched.”

“Unbelievable,” said Narvi. “The greatest playwright the City’s ever seen vanishes for six years and now he’s in my living room demanding drinks.” She paused. “Actually, that does sound a lot like you. I’ll see what I have.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a tall glass pitcher of deep red fruit juice and two mugs, handing one to Andreov. They sipped in silence, winding down.

“How did you do it?” she asked after a while.

“Do what?”

“We all saw the state your place was in. Totally wrecked, but no windows broken or anything. No escape routes.” Narvi folded her arms, expectant. “So how did you escape the kill squad? The Orzhov don’t let people get away.”

He’d rehearsed it just as rigorously as ever, but he couldn’t help but embellish the original script a little; a good story could always be just a little better. The Dimir illusionist who’d spirited him away at the last minute, his six-month captivity deep in the Undercity, the Wojek patrol that had finally found him and the dirty sergeant who’d offered him a guardsman position while he waited for the Orzhov to lose the scent. All a finely crafted fabrication, of course, but it was easier than explaining the whole planeswalker thing.

“But I’m back now,” he finished, “and I’d like to put all that behind me, if I can.”

 “Alright,” she said. She clearly didn’t believe him, but that wasn’t important; the story would keep people busy even if they knew it was a load of indrik fodder. “Why come back now?”

He cleared his throat. This was the next hurdle.

“I’ve finished the third act,” he said.

Narvi’s jaw fell open.

“It needs performing. Are the Bad Citizens still together?”

She nodded. “Yes, but…”

“Good. Where are they playing now?”

“Tin Street Civic, but listen…”

“Alright, I’ll head over there in the morning.” He gulped down the rest of his juice in one. “In the meantime, can I stay the night here?”

“Andreov!” snapped Narvi.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“They’re still going,” said Narvi, “but a lot’s changed. Serus Vaz runs the show now, and his strategy is… different.”

Andreov narrowed his eyes. “Different how, exactly?”

“Well, he doesn’t work with me, for a start.”

“What?” Andreov dropped his mug to the floor, shattering it. “Why?”

“I was costing them too much,” said Narvi. “They don’t run anything now that’s worth promoting. They were spending more on me than they were earning from extra punters.”

“We don’t run…” He took a moment to compose himself. “Narvi, what’s happened to my troupe?”

“Their best asset stopped writing the good stuff, drank himself senseless and then vanished into thin air. What do you think happened?”

Andreov was fuming now. “Tell me.”

“The Bad Citizens,” said Narvi, “are just like every other show on Tin Street. They play the classics. Churov, Saluj, Kawalasci. The occasional Serus Vaz original.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They haven’t performed one of yours in years.”

He sighed. He scratched at his beard. He sighed. He opened his mouth to speak, then decided to sigh again instead. He did this a few times. Narvi started to drum her fingers on the arm of her chair. At last, he settled on, “Do you have another mug?”

“No,” said Narvi, “and you’re paying for that one.”

**+++**

Over the next couple of hours, punctuated by bouts of spluttering disbelief, he got the rest of the story out of her. Serus Vaz, the Bad Citizens’ stage manager, had taken the lead not long after Andreov’s disappearance. Vaz was an excellent logistician and a competent playwright himself, but he knew that the Citizens had lost their biggest draw, and, if they were to survive, cutbacks would have to be made.

Narvi was the first casualty. With smaller crowds, the Bad Citizens had to perform more to make up for it, and venue fees ate up the money that had once been spent on promotion. One day, Serus Vaz had simply told Narvi he was ending a decade-long partnership. The parting had been amicable, she said, and she’d stayed friends with the actors, but her eyes told Andreov a different story.

It had all gone downhill from there. Yula had been caught with her fingers in the strongbox, again, and the Citizens simply couldn’t afford to fund her gambling habit any longer, so Vaz gave her the shove. Not long afterwards, Zolv had gotten himself killed in a bar fight, and that had made Jalska leave in disgust – all three leads gone in a single stroke.

They hadn’t even done the decent thing and disbanded, though. They struggled on, scouting other troupes, hoping Andreov’s name would draw fresh talent to bail them out of creative bankruptcy. They weren’t even a laughing stock. They were _mediocre_.

These were not the Bad Citizens he’d worked alongside for eight glorious years (and two not-so-glorious ones).

Narvi had to be up for work soon, so she turned in for the night once she’d finished the tale, leaving Andreov to his thoughts. As Andreov lay awake in her best chair, staring daggers at the ceiling, he could not still his mind.

She’d suggested that he get another troupe together, but that was out of the question. The first and second acts had been Bad Citizens originals, and it had to be them, with Yula in the lead. Letting anyone else perform the third would shame the play as a whole, and above all it’d shame him for giving his best work to anyone less than his best crew.

He couldn’t just show up and take back the Citizens on the spot, though. He might have been a maverick visionary, respected by all, back in the golden days, but by the end he’d been a dissolute drunkard, sleepwalking his way through comedy after toothless comedy just to stay afloat. He had to prove to them that he’d fixed his life.

Perhaps the best way to do that was to show them he could fix someone else’s.

He thought of Yula. They hadn’t exactly left things on a positive note, and, after six years officially dead, it was probably safe to assume that the wedding was off. But surely she still felt something for him. Surely. And perhaps, if she did, she’d follow him back to the stage.

It was decided, then. His first order of business was getting his leading lady back.


End file.
